Kaptivated

I make music to help the world find passion.

[mikestoleyobike-deactivated2024]

“Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten.”

— ​Nicolaus Zinzendorf

[kaptivatedmusic]

Given, not Withheld

Every Sunday night, my brother, my mother, and I share how our weeks have been with each other.

Tonight, things were pretty depressing. I’ve been struggling in every area of my life—building Good Fruit, making music, finding a job, paying my bills, having intimacy with God, maintaining physical health—and my brother’s been in a very similar spot. On top of that, my mom’s boss’ wife passed away on Thursday from cancer. She went to the funeral today.

But my mom wasn’t really unsettled by any of it. Of course she was touched by the funeral, grieved at her boss’ loss, worried about my brother’s and my lifestyles—but she didn’t panic or anything. She just said, “Be grateful for what God has given you instead of focusing on what he hasn’t.”

And I’ve heard that before. I’ve said the exact same phrase to tons of people. But it just meant something else tonight, especially from her.

For the past several months, I’ve been almost exclusively focused on myself: my bills, my unemployment, my career, my dreams. And not only that—all of these things hinge on something I don’t have. I don’t have enough money to pay my bills. I don’t have any offers to bring me out of unemployment. I don’t have the career I want. I don’t have even a portion of my dream in reality.

But God has given me so much. He’s given me a family that cares deeply for me and prioritizes me when I don’t prioritize them. He’s given me the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in—a relationship that always breathes life into me when I’m the most drained, discouraged, and depressed. He’s given me a healthy and able body, even after a serious wreck and several bouts of bronchitis. He’s given me a church community that cares for me and accepts me unlike any other group of people I’ve ever met.

And more than anything, he’s given his own son to make me his own. Paul calls the gift of God’s own son the greatest gift he could possibly give—if God didn’t even spare his own son, he’ll surely give us everything. God literally paid the highest price he could’ve possibly paid for my soul.

Yet I’m here unable to think about anything except money. Whenever my mind gets the free time to wander, it always wanders to my job hunt, freelance jobs, and any other way I can make enough money to survive. But Jesus reminds me, “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.“

So I guess the battle for gratitude, faith, and the kingdom begins here?

[kaptivatedmusic]

Six Months after Quitting My Job

It’s been six months since I quit my job. The transition was pretty smooth—I found a part-time job to cover my expenses, and I was able to start spending most of my time doing what I love almost instantly.

But the day after Christmas, I found out my employer was running out of money and had to let me go. Everything ended on good terms, but I’m back at square one. The night I found out, I applied to 25 jobs. If I want to continue living the lifestyle I’ve been living, I have to get a job before February.

And honestly, it’s been very difficult. I haven’t found any openings that pay enough to cover my expenses, and there seems to be fewer listings than back in July. So I’ve been reevaluating my decision to invest so much time and effort into building Good Fruit.

I’m literally giving up my career for the next few years for this label. Instead of getting a stable full-time job in a larger business where I can learn and build my career, I’m looking strictly for part-time jobs (and internships) where 90% of the employers are expecting me to be the expert rather than being the expert that teaches me about the trade.

I’ve also given up insurance benefits, a living wage, and any potential of me being a part of any other organization meaningfully. I’ve been having issues with my teeth lately, and the fact that I can’t visit an endodontist because just the evaluation alone is too expensive is making me ask myself whether this “dream” is worth my physical health.

Instead of serving those around me with what I have, I’ve had to repeatedly receive and ask for help from those around me because I don’t have enough money. I just got back from a retreat that I literally needed to go on for the free meals. Money, unfortunate as it is, is the biggest concern of my life right now, and helping build this record label is the primary reason why I’m struggling to make ends meet.

Plus, a handful of other organizations have asked me to help them as a marketer. They’re all interesting brands, causes I’m passionate about, and more promising revenue streams, but I don’t have time. I can’t help these brands like they’d like me to because 20 hours of my week are devoted to Good Fruit, and another 20 to the part-time job I’m looking for right now.

So I’ve started considering other options. Maybe I should step down, get a full-time job, and live comfortably. Finally be able to go out and eat meals with people, let alone treating anyone out. Finally have some kind of insurance provider to answer when clinics ask for my coverage. Finally buy gifts for the people I love. Finally give to my neighbors and those in need.

Or maybe go back to school and get a technical skill I can use to fund everything else in my life. Or abandon everything and move abroad for missions. Or move back home and take a gap year. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to do with my life anymore. And it’s all because of money.

[thesovereignword]

Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once.

Charles Spurgeon (via thesovereignword)

[nancdelga-deactivated20240124]

true prayer is measured by weight, and not by length.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (via nancdelga)

[semperreformanda]

I know some of you are greatly distressed because you cannot love Christ as much as you would like to do and you keep on fretting because it is so. Now just forget your own love to Him and think of His great love to you and then immediately your love will come to something more like that with which you desire it to be.

C.H. Spurgeon (via be-thou-my-delight)

[jspark3000]

All along, I was worse than I thought. But all along, I was more loved than I thought.

Timothy Keller (via jspark3000)

[christ-our-glory]

[mesogeios]

I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. I know too that the powerful fear art, whatever its form, when it does this, and that amongst the people such art sometimes runs like a rumour and a legend because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts and honour.

John Berger (via mesogeios)

[thequotejournals]

Those who do not move do not notice their chains.

Rose Luxemburg (via fy-perspectives)

[crazycat-chris-deactivated20180]

Were you but as willing to get the knowledge of God and heavenly things as you are to know how to work in your trade, you would have set yourself to it before this day, and you would have spared no cost or pains till you had got it. But you account seven years little enough to learn your trade, and will not bestow one day in seven in diligent learning the matters of your salvation.

Richard Baxter, as qtd. by J. I. Packer in “The Puritan View of Preaching the Gospel” (via thyfacewilliseek)

[anoceanofprofundity]

Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who passionately long for God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are here. They do not see songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of His fullness.

John Piper (via anoceanofprofundity)

[kaptivatedmusic]

WHICH ASIAN RAPPERS SHOULD I LISTEN TO? I made this infographic for anyone who's unfamiliar with Asian American talent in hip hop. ENJOY! More of my work: edwardsunATL.com @nakhiphop @samuelock @ampmovement @jasonchumusic (I don't think any of the other rappers have Tumblrs...)

[mikestoleyobike-deactivated2024]

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Hebrews 11:24‭-‬26 ESV (via mikestoleyobike)

[mikestoleyobike-deactivated2024]

Let no man, then, pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation to it.

John Owen (via mikestoleyobike)

[kaptivatedmusic]

Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

1 Peter 2:10-12

[thequotejournals]

You struggle….again and again. And then one day, you triumph.

Kate Grace  (via herkindoftea)